EL BARRIO, EL FALLS – Happy 1st Monday in April! The time has just flown by – and it hasn’t necessarily been fun. It’s been busy to the point I could hardly keep up. Speaking of keeping up, let’s get all caught on the sports news this week by looking at today’s topics. On tap for today are: Women’s NCAA Championship, Men’s Final Four and USMNT WC Draw
Women’s NCAA Championship
The Women’s College Basketball game has been a story of dynasties built from scratch. It goes back to the late great Pat Summit at the University of Tennessee going from sliding open tryout flyers under dorm room doors to making Tennessee Women’s Basketball the gold standard in the land… In the late 80s, at the University of Connecticut, Geno Auriemma began the process of building a program that would come to rival Summit as the premier program in the land… In 2000, USA Basketball star Dawn Staley began coaching Temple University women’s program and after impressive success was hired to be the head coach at the University of South Carolina. The University was offering more control and resources and Staley welcomed it. Since then she has gone to make South Carolina a more prestigious program than the previously mentioned schools. So it was fitting that future legend met current legend for the Women’s NCAA Championship in basketball last night. South Carolina took on UConn and it wasn’t even close as SC won 64-49 and collected their second national title under Staley. She still has a long way to go to get to Tennessee’s 8 under Summit or Connecticut’s 11 under Auriemma, but it is a heck of a start.
Men’s Final Four
So it looks like the University of North Carolina will have the final bragging rights in their long running feud with Duke. The Tarheels managed to defeat Duke in Coach K’s (Mike Krzyzewski) final home game. And then with the two team meeting each other in the NCAA Semi final’s in coach K’s final year, Tar Heels won 81-77. As deep as the rivalry goes, this was beyond sweet for UNC fans and for Duke fans who had had the better season. On the other side of the bracket, Bill Self’s Kansas Jayhawks were too much for Villanova and will likely be too much for UNC. However, considering this was a rebuilding year for UNC, and they are in the final after running Duke’s farewell party plans for coach K, they may have the moxie to upset Kansas. We will find out tonight. And by the way, WATCH THIS.
USMNT WC Draw
That is a lot of letters and if you are not a soccer fan, you are likely wondering what he hell all of it means. It stands for United States Men’s National Team World Cup Draw. The USA was drawn into group B, where they will face England, Iran and the winner of the European Playoff – either Scotland, Ukraine or Wales. The ongoing war in Ukraine has made scheduling the matches difficult but they will know the winner by June. Though they don’t know their opponent, they do know the schedule and their mystery opponent will be their first game will be Nov. 21, which is also the first day of the World Cup. The U.S. then plays England on Nov. 25, the day after Thanksgiving. The USMNT concludes group play against Iran on Nov. 29.
Thanks for reading, comment below. Come back tomorrow for our Ben Whitney, who try to tell you that Yankees are due for a big season.
